


Hell On Earth

by Xamnada



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-25 17:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xamnada/pseuds/Xamnada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy is doing recon on an abandoned house on the outskirts of Sunnydale when Dean and Sam break into the house, investigating Sunnydale's astonishingly large death rate. There is suspicion all round, and a severe disagreement on hunting tactics. Giles doesn't know what to make of any of it, and Dean and Cas appear to be developing a deeper relationship, or something similar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set 4 episodes from the end of season 5 of Supernatural. Sam and Dean do NOT yet know about the Horsemen's rings (already they have already taken War's and Famine's), and Cas has some level of power, though nowhere near full strength. Bobby is still wheelchair bound; Crowley has not yet entered the scene. Lucifer is at large in his temporary vessel, and Michael is without one for the moment. Neither of the boys are planning on saying yes anytime soon, but as of yet they don't have a plan for stopping the apocalypse.
> 
> Set in Sunnydale, around the area of the College campus. Not sure exactly when in the series it's based around, but somewhere like the start of season 4. There is no big bad looming yet, so Buffy's just doing a routine patrol. She's checking out an abandoned house around the outskirts of town, in an area where a few people have gone missing over the past few days.

With a final flourish, Buffy stabbed Mr Pointy through the heart of the final vamp. It hadn't been a fun evening. One of the vamps had been wearing high heels and a miniskirt, which was weird enough anyway. But getting kicked in the ribs by some stilettos? Not exactly what had been intended. Still, she though, as she wiped the revolting dust off her jacket, at least now the house was clear. She'd been through every room, and it had been one hell of a nest. Buffy had also found a couple of corpses, which would explain a couple of the missing persons. They hadn't been pretty.

With a groan, Buffy clambered laboriously to her feet and tried to breathe through the intense stabbing pain in her chest. There was blood, and her mom was gonna freak when she got home. Wonderful, like she needed some more shouting.

Outside the house, just visible through the layer of grime and the rags hanging over the broken window, a streetlamp flickered, buzzed, and went out.

That was creepy.

Buffy stood frozen in the middle of the room. Downstairs, she could have sworn that she'd heard the front door open. She specifically remembered closing it so the wind didn't knock it and give her away when she was sneaking in, and she'd remembered how the hinge gave a massive screech when she closed it. Sure enough, a couple of seconds later Buffy heard the unmistakable sounds of footsteps, and a massive creak as the door closed again. Someone swore.

Buffy listened carefully. Two sets of footsteps, both treading slowly. Surely not vamps, they would have just walked right in. Unless it wasn't their nest, they were from a different one... if so, it wasn't exactly perfect but she could deal. She was the slayer, and she'd just cleared out a house full of vamps. Two more wouldn't make much difference.

Now someone spoke.

"Dean? You got anything?"

"Nope. I'll go check upstairs, you have a look in the cupboards, see if you can find anything. EMF, sulphur, there's gotta be something goin' on round here. Even if you ignore Sunnydale's death count, this house is creepy."

"I dunno Dean. Seems pretty dead to me."

"Still, gotta check it out."

Buffy remained where she was, stood in the centre of the room with stake in hand. She couldn't be bothered with sneak tactics. Besides, these guys didn't sound like vamps. And what was EMF?

The stairs creaked, footsteps nearing the top. There was only one room on the upper floor, so there was little hope of this guy not spotting her. The door swung open.

Okay, so definitely not a vamp. Leather jacket, short hair, flashlight and gun. He, Dean, didn't look at all surprised to see her at first, but his eyes widened when he saw the stake in her hand. Buffy supposed she should probably have hidden it, but a bit too late now.

There was a moment's pause. Then slowly Dean put the flashlight in his pocket, eyes still fixed on Buffy. He brought some kind of packet out of his pocket, a white sort of powder. Kinda weird. Suddenly, without warning, he threw the contents straight into Buffy's face.

"Eeugh!" Buffy panicked, wiping the substance off as quickly as she could. What was it? It could be a creepy vampirey powder, or a kind of spell, maybe they'd cast a spell! It tasted revolting. Like…salt. Actually, pretty much exactly like salt in pretty much every way. So… this random guy had just thrown salt in her face. That was a new one. And it had gotten all into her clothes, damn.

Dean was still stood in exactly the same place, watching her reaction. It had clearly not been what he was expecting. He then proceeded to open a small metal flask. Buffy had assumed he was going to drink from it. She didn't expect him to throw it all over her. Gee, it was her lucky day with randomers throwing stuff.

It was…water. Buffy noted this with a dull sort of resignation. Not only had she just killed about ten vampires, in one evening, with no backup, she now had a total stranger throwing seemingly random substances in her face. Was that the thanks she was going to get?

"Can please, someone tell me, exactly why that was necessary?" Buffy asked, managing to show only the barest hint of irritation and sarcasm in her voice. "I mean come on. It's not like you didn't break into this place. And It's not my fault that I broke in first. Can you just not fling seasonings at random people that you meet in creepy old abandoned buildings? It's not a great first impression. You could just say hello. I believe that is the current term."

"Um, okay sure." Dean said, with a creepily cheerful air. The gun had never once moved from its position, its position at this time being pointed directly at Buffy's chest. "So, since we are here having this, uh, delightful conversation in the middle of this crazy old abandoned house…d'you mind telling me exactly what you're doing here? And why exactly you're holding a stake? And who you are would be pretty useful as well."

Buffy immediately hid the stake behind her back, much good that did her. Oh god, this meant she had to think of an excuse. Quick. C'mon, anything.

"Um. Well. Um. I was, er, dared?"

Dean laughed.

Oh yeah, well done Buffy. You've nailed that one. That didn't even sound slightly convincing, and remember that this guy is pointing a gun at you.

"Okay…" Dean was clearly thinking hard. "Are you…hunting something?"

Buffy froze. Did this guy actually know about vampires, the hellmouth, the slayer and stuff? Or did he think that she was just some lunatic pretending to be a vampire hunter? During the pause that followed Dean's question, Buffy considered the best way to answer, and finally came to the conclusion that she'd tell him the truth. The worst that he could think was that she was crazy. And besides, didn't she hear him and the other one talking about ectoplasm or something downstairs? Maybe being forward was the best way to go.

Dean was still looking questioningly at Buffy.

"Yeah, I suppose I am. Sort of." Buffy quipped, with a slight shrug and smile.

Dean narrowed his eyes.

"So…you're a hunter?" he asked, a clear note of suspicion to his voice.

"Nope. I'm a Slayer."

That threw him.

"You're a what, exactly?"

"I'm a slayer. I slay things. That's my job I guess."

"Oh really?" Dean was staring at her. Buffy began to feel a small twinge of fear; he looked as though he could handle himself, and while that didn't usually cause a problem for her he did have a gun. Dean continued, raising his voice. "And what exactly do you 'slay'? See, I've been in this game practically my whole life, and I've never heard of anyone called a Slayer before."

"What game's that?"

"Hunting. I'm a hunter, it's what I do. We came here because the death rate of this town is enormous, you know to be honest it's a wonder there's any people left. It also looked as though there'd been some signs of vampire activity, so we decided to check it out. You clearly thought the same thing. But you brought a stake."

"Yes, I did bring a stake. It's pretty useful. I also got crosses and some holy water."

Dean groaned. "You can't kill vampires with a stake! Or holy water, or crosses! I know of only two things that can kill a vampire, and it ain't any of them."

Fine. Buffy was getting to get a bit angry too. This guy obviously didn't have a clue what he was talking about, and he wasn't just going to walk in here after she killed a bunch of vampires and tell her that she was wrong.

"Um, I think you'll find you can. See any vampires around you right now?"

Dean tipped his head to one side. "Maybe."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "No, you don't. And do you know why that is? 'Cause when you arrived, I'd just finished killing them all. With this stake. So I'm pretty sure it works. But hey, if we find any more I'll be sure to give you a demonstration and prove it to you."

"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, we're gonna finish checking out the house, get out of this dump and continue this conversation in a place other than here." To Buffy's relief Dean had finally stopped pointing the gun at her, and was now walking around the edges of the room, closely examining the walls, floor and windows. He also took a few looks up into the slanted roof, but the ceiling was so high and the light so bad it was difficult to see anything, even with the flashlight. Muttering under his breath about how much he hated old abandoned buildings, Dean reached the centre of the room.

There was a tremendous crash and the sound of splintering wood. Crap, maybe Buffy hadn't cleared out all of the vamps after all. The vampire that had been hiding in the rafters had leapt down, with the clear intention of landing on Dean. Luckily she'd missed by a metre or so, and landed pretty hard on the wooden floorboards. Dean yelled and stumbled backwards into a wall, dropping the gun and desperately fumbling at the back of his belt, probably looking for another weapon. This was shown a couple of seconds later to be a long knife. He advanced on the vampire, feinting with the knife while she stood preparing to fight, hissing at him.

Then she exploded in a shower of dust, with a pointed wooden object protruding from her chest.

Buffy stood behind the former vampire, tucking her stake away. Dean was breathing heavily.

"What the hell kind of a thing was that?" he asked, in an almost accusatory tone.

"Vampire, genius," Buffy retorted. "Is this the right time for an 'I told you so'?"

Dean frowned, looking at the pile of dust on the floor, and slowly nodded. "Well, it wasn't any kind of a vampire I've experienced before. Their…faces…don't usually do that."

Buffy shrugged. "Well, it's the kind we get round here."

Dean nodded again, then raised his eyes to Buffy. "I guess I owe you one. You've gotta tell us about what you do get round here, I'd be very interested in that. And thanks for, er, staking it or whatever you did." He offered his hand and Buffy shook it.

"I'm Buffy. And you're Dean, right? I heard you and the other guy talking downstairs. Didn't you mention ectoplasm or something? And would you mind telling me what you hunt?"

Dean gave a kind of wry grin. "Yeah, I'm sure I could do that, though you're not gonna like it. As if you didn't have enough vampires to deal with, we've got a hell of a lot more."

"Like what?" Buffy asked.

Suddenly there was shouting from downstairs. "Dean? DEAN!"

Dean yelled back. "Everything's fine dude, but you might wanna come upstairs. You missed some action."

The other guy was climbing the stairs. "Yeah, I guessed. I was just at the car on the phone to Bobby, and all of a sudden it sounded like the house was falling down or something. Dean…"

He walked into the room and stopped. Taller than Dean and with longer hair, he looked from Buffy to Dean, shocked. "Dean! Is she…?"

Dean shook his head. "Dude, she's human, and some kind of hunter. There's some major stuff goin' on in this town."

The other guy nodded. "I know, there's sulphur, EMF, everything downstairs. I even found an angel banishing sign on the inside of cupboard door. Someone round here's been speaking with them or fighting with them, and I'm not sure if that's a good sign." He looked at Buffy for the first time. "Um, hi. Who are you?"

"My name's Buffy," she said slightly affrontedly. "And you are?"

Dean grinned at the guy stood in the doorway. "My name's Dean Winchester, and this is my brother, Sam."

Sam gave a slight nod and a wave from the door, and spoke to Dean.

"Look man, we've got some serious problems."

Dean nodded and shot a dark look at Buffy. "Yeah, Sammy. Tell me about it."


	2. Chapter 2

Dean was slightly perplexed by this girl. I mean, she couldn't be that much more than 19 or 20, but here she was, out in the dead of night hunting and killing vampires. But with a stake. There was something very different about this place, and these vampires weren't the sort he'd experienced before. Dean had seen himself that a stake through the heart had killed it, he'd seen it explode in a shower of dust. He just didn't get how there were two completely different types of vampires, each with completely different vulnerabilities. Well, hopefully this wouldn't have anything to do with Lucifer, though he had a nagging suspicion that he was never very far away.

After Buffy had staked the last vamp, Dean and Sam had continued searching the house. To their dismay, they'd found Enochian angel-proofing sigils covering the walls, including a banishing sign drawn from blood. This, combined with the appearance of large amounts of sulphur, didn't give them a very good feeling.

"This must've been some kinda demon hideout," Sam noted, when they found a pot of blood in a cupboard. "I mean, it's angels against demons at the moment right? So any demons that're up to something are gonna try and make sure no-one upstairs hears about it. It's all this blood that's really shady. What d'you think they're using it for?"

Dean shook his head, taking the pot of blood from Sam and taking a close look. "You gotta remember that we know for sure there's been vamps in here. Maybe they were working together, trying to keep a low profile so they couldn't go out to feed and hence the blood? I dunno man, this all getting a bit crazy."

Sam smirked. "It is the apocalypse, remember, don't expect things to stay too normal."

"That's just it though. Things are goin' insane. Lucifer's still walking around and at the moment, we got no way of stopping him. I don't know how much longer we're gonna be able to keep up with this. Not to mention we got less backup, 'cause hunters are getting killed all over the place."

"I know dude, but even though we've got no gameplan we've just gotta keep fighting until we work something out." Sam said with a shrug.

"Yeah, I know," Dean sighed. "I don't fancy going back to hell though, so I reckon we should do our best to keep out of it."

Sam just nodded, not looking at Dean.

Then, the front door swung open, and Buffy walked through. Both Sam and Dean's hands had jumped straight to their guns. Buffy put her hands up into the air in mock surrender. "Alright guys! It's just me."

Dean relaxed slightly. "Yeah, alright. Where'd you go anyway? You don't really wanna be wandering off."

"If you say so. I can look after myself; I've only died once since I came here." Sam frowned, and Dean turned to look at him, eyes wide. Buffy continued. "If you really wanna know, I went to fetch my supplies." At this, Buffy held up her bag, from which Dean and Sam could see assorted stakes, a cross, some bottles of what they assumed was holy water, and what appeared to be a crossbow. Sam raised his eyebrows.

Dean jumped off the table on which he had been sitting, stretched and spoke. "So, uh, Buffy. Do you want us to drop you at your place or something? We were gonna go find a place to stay while we figure out what the hell's going on around here, and what the hell those vamps were."

"Um, sure, thanks!" Buffy replied with a small smile. "Well, if you want to come by, say my house on Monday, midday time? I can take you to see my watcher. Well, my ex-watcher. And we can explain…well, we can try and explain what we do. Well, what I do. Well…yeah. So is that good?"

The brothers looked at each other. Sam raised his eyebrows, Dean shrugged and made a non-committal gesture with his head, Sam nodded and gestured to his gun on the table, Dean nodded and they turned back to Buffy.

"That sounds fine." Sam smiled.

"So, you guys have a car right?" Buffy asked. Dean's face lit up.

Dean and Sam had had a very dull weekend, involving doing lots of research but finding very little. They were trying to find some different lore regarding the different types of vampire, but so far even Bobby hadn't had much luck. To Dean's intense disappointment there were practically no decent bars round where they were staying in Sunnydale, and the brothers had agreed to try and keep a low profile in case Lucifer had demon spies around. This meant that their time was dedicated solely to research, in Dean's case with added drinking. Despite the hours spent, Sam and Dean emerged from the weekend with nothing but sleep deprivation. By the time the Winchesters were due to meet Buffy, Dean was in a bad mood.

"I just don't see how this is gonna help us with Lucifer. We need to find a way to kill that sonofabitch before he kills everyone else, including us. What are we gonna get from these lame excuses for vampires anyway?"

Sam sighed. "C'mon Dean. We've got no leads on Lucifer, no signs or anything. Even the angels aren't talking. We haven't seen Cas for a whole week so he's probably working on something."

"I know Sam. I just feel like we should be trying to track him down or something, rather than ending up in this freaky town. It gives me a bad feeling." A pause. "I wish Cas was here. I'm worried 'bout the guy."

Sam looked sharply at Dean. He knew his older brother didn't show vulnerability, that he hated to admit if anything was wrong. However, Dean had almost said yes to Michael out of good intentions, and although he'd promised Sam that they'd keep fighting against their supposed destinies, Sam was still worried about him. He didn't know if Dean would change his mind, whether he'd crack and give in to the archangel. Dean said he was fine, of course. But Sam thought that Dean looked seriously worried, and maybe even scared.

"We could try calling for Cas again, you know? I mean, we've found something odd here, maybe we should ask if he knows anything about it."

Sam was just trying to make Dean feel better. Dean didn't need to know that Sam wasn't feeling too good either.

At that point, they arrived at Buffy's house. Dean stopped the Impala at the spot where they'd left Buffy on Friday night, hit the horn a few times and waited. Around 30 seconds later, the front door opened and Buffy sauntered out. Dean eyed her critically. She was wearing a sort of flowery dress. Sam watched Dean's reaction and said nothing. Until he got fed up of the appalled look on Dean's face.

"Dean, I don't think she expects us to be attacked! She should be allowed to wear a dress. And besides, I thought we were just going over to see a friend of hers?"

"I know Sam, I know. And hell, I'm not trying to stop the girl looking nice or anything. But it is a bit impractical. Jeans are good. Jeans have pockets. You know, for putting stakes in?"

Buffy reached the car. Dean stopped talking as Sam shot him a meaningful glance. Sam smiled at Buffy.

"So where exactly are we going?"

"What the hell happened here?"

Dean pulled up the Impala on the road in front of Sunnydale High, and the three of them climbed out. Sam was staring at the school, or what there was of it.

The main building of the school had been rebuilt, the reception space, the canteen and the area containing the library. The rest was still a work in progress. At least most of the buildings had walls by now, albeit no roofs.

Buffy surveyed the sight with a slight look of glee. The brothers looked slightly confused, so she explained. "It sort of got destroyed."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. And how did it get destroyed exactly?"  
"Well, the mayor did this Ascension thing, and turned into a demon on graduation day. So we killed it. It managed to get the school first though. Oh, and the head teacher. But I didn't like him anyway."

Dean continued nodding, in a faintly ironic way. "Okay, awesome. Who're we here to see again? And why're we here?"

"He's called Giles. He used to be my watcher, before I told the council to stick it. He's the librarian here, or he will be when it's fully rebuilt. He's here at the moment trying to sort all the books out. His collection was damaged a while back, I'm not sure he's ever going to recover." Buffy started walking into the school, but Dean and Sam hung back.

"Wait, you're just expecting us to walk in there? Isn't anyone going to be suspicious?" Dean asked suspiciously.

Buffy didn't stop, or even turn around. "Nah, it'll be fine," she called. "It's not like there's anyone here. They're not even building at the moment. Seriously, only Giles would turn up on a day like today."  
Dean figured they didn't have much of an option. The Winchesters looked at each other, shrugged simultaneously and followed Buffy into the building site.

When the trio walked through the door of the library, Giles was sorting through a gigantic box, containing probably hundreds of books. There were 7 more boxes in the room. Dean noted all of this with only a vague interest; he was far too busy being wary of attack. He walked slowly, his right hand close to his side in case he needed to grab the knife. Sam appeared a lot more relaxed, and Buffy clearly couldn't care less.

"Hey Giles." Buffy made her presence known by grabbing a book out of the box he was sorting through and examining it with a faintly horrified look on her face. "This all looks real interesting."

Giles looked up, giving her a faint smile and putting down the book he was holding. "Hello Buffy. Well yes, it is actually. But probably not to you. I've had to re-buy practically all of my original stock , since most of them got, um, destroyed, and it's taken a fair bit of organising." As he was speaking, Giles took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face. "It's quite exhausting."

During this conversation, Dean and Sam stood awkwardly at the door. Dean felt slightly dubious about this guy. Sure, he'd got a pretty damn huge book collection, but how much tweed does a guy need to wear?

Buffy - who had picked up a crossbow and had been idly examining it - seemed to remember the Winchester's existence and turned to them. "Giles, this is Sam and Dean Winchester." The brothers raised their hands in turn. Giles gave a slight start when he realised he had company, and immediately tried to grab the crossbow out of Buffy's hand, an excuse already forming in his mind. Buffy stubbornly kept hold of the bow. "It's okay Giles. They know about stuff. I met them when I was patrolling on Friday night, and they said they wanted more information about the kind of vampires we get round here."

Giles nodded slowly, then gave another slight start. "You mean, you have different kind of vampires elsewhere?"  
The brothers nodded. Buffy sighed. "Grab a chair, guys. This may take a while."


	3. Chapter 3

Dean was pacing the library, frowning and thinking hard. "So, okay, you're the slayer I get that. And you kill vampires and stuff, I get that too. But why does it have to be you? I mean Sam and I, we were raised like this. Our dad left us with no other option. But you've got so much else you could do!"  
Buffy nodded. "Believe me; don't think I don't want to stop doing this crazy stuff. But hey, I'm the chosen one. Besides, my friends tried to carry on the slaying without me once. They were awful."

Buffy was sat on the table in the library. Sam and Giles were sat at opposite sides, Giles cleaning his glasses, and Dean was still pacing. However at Buffy's last words, Sam voiced his thoughts.

"So, you just live here? With your mom, your friends and everyone just living a normal life?"

Buffy shrugged. "Well, yeah. I can't move away, so I just live my life as well as I can."

"Because of the hellmouth, right? There's more evil here than most places, we could tell by the death rate. But does your mom know about all of this?"

"Yep. And my friends. They help out with the research and stuff; it's pretty useful having more people on the case. And they occasionally shoot things for me."

Dean spoke again. "The thing that's getting me at the moment is these new vamps. First we have to behead them to kill them, now we need to stake them. I mean what the hell, can't they just have a rule to this?"

Giles had been leafing through books, trying to find some information on the type of vampires Sam had described to him. Now he looked up. "Rest assured, I am doing my utmost to find out why there is a difference. At the moment though, no new information. This devil predicament though, is a wholly different matter."

"Yeah, I'm not too keen on it myself," Dean growled. "Lucifer is looking for Sam, and Michael is looking for me. Both of them still seem to think that we'll say 'yes'. So far we have no way of killing either of them. But I figured, while we're here we may as well look into all of this vampire crap."

Giles looked slightly uncomfortable. "What exactly is it that you're planning to 'look into'?" he asked.

Dean and Sam glanced at each other before Dean replied. "Well first, we're gonna see if we can get some backup. Shall I start praying or will you?" Sam smirked. "Better give him a ring instead." Giles just looked lost.

Dean resumed his pacing around the room, flipped open his phone, dialled a number and began speaking. "Hey there, Cas? Look man, we know you're busy what with Lucifer and everything, but we're a bit lost here and we could do with some advice. And we figured you might know something about all of this. If you're too busy kicking some ass, then fine, we just figured you might want to check in at some point." Dean closed his phone, stopped in the middle of the library and everyone looked around. Sam and Dean looked hopeful, expectant. Buffy looked mildly interested and Giles was looked as though he was wondering if everyone was going mad. About a minute passed, with no sign of Cas. Dean sighed and threw himself into a chair.

"What exactly did you just attempt?" Giles asked, still looking around the room. Sam glanced at Dean, who was looking utterly despondent and figured he'd have to do the explaining.

"We were ringing Cas. Castiel, he's an angel. And a friend of ours, and he's been trying to help us out. Thing is though, we haven't heard from him in over a week and we're getting a bit worried." Dean was now sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. "We can't just pray to him like normal, because he carved Enochian symbols into our ribs. So we're stuck using phones."

Giles floundered. "You just rang an angel?"

"Um, yeah." Sam tried to catch Dean's eye. "Look man I'm sure he's fine. Listen, if Lucifer or Michael got hold of him, they'd have found his phone right? And if they'd got his phone, surely they would have answered when we called?"

Dean didn't raise his head. "Whatever you say, Sammy. He's got the entire forces of Heaven and Hell on his arse, I'm sure he's doin' just fine."

There was a whooshing sound, and a sound that sounded like the flap of wings. "I am fine."

Giles and Buffy jumped. Sam's face went from tense to relief. Dean jumped out of his chair, started towards the man who had just appeared and grabbed his shoulders. "Jeez, Cas! You couldn't have let us know you were alive or anything? We've been worrying for a week about; I thought Lucifer had got you! Why didn't you answer my calls?"

Cas gave a faint smile. "You have my apologies, Dean. I've been very busy; attempting to track the Devil without him knowing is no easy task. I was also trying to find a way to stop him, but I have had no luck."

Dean realised he still had his hands on Cas' shoulders. Lowering them self-consciously, Dean turned to the others. Giles and Buffy were staring. "Buffy, Giles, this is Castiel. Cas…"

"Buffy Summers and Rupert Giles, I know. It is a pleasure."

Buffy examined Castiel. "You know, I never pictured angels as wearing trench coats."

Cas looked at Dean. "Why does everybody say that?"

Dean laughed. "C'mon Cas." He took the angel by the elbow and led him over to one of the chairs next to the large table, and then sat down next to him. Sam watched this with his eyes narrowed slightly. Dean was still smiling.

Sam coughed and leaned forward. "So, Castiel. Did you know about these different vampires around here? Or the hellmouth?"

"I did," Cas sighed. "The hellmouth creates these vampires. It is an opening to hell, not a true door. More a sort of warped gap. Not many souls can pass through. When they do pass, they are distorted and become monsters. That is why they are different here to how they are elsewhere, and they never get far from here thanks to the work of the slayer."

Buffy nodded. "Okay then. I guess that's why I'm not allowed to move away from here, so that all of these vampires can be contained in this place. We can't let them get out and let them get everyone else in America."

Dean shook his head. "Isn't there any other people you can get in for this? Any other slayers that have more choice in the matter?"

"Well, after I died another slayer did get called. And then she died. And then I stabbed the one that got called after her, so it's not going too well."

"How did another slayer get called?"

"I sort of died."

Dean almost laughed. "Well, be thankful you didn't go to hell. It's not fun, believe me."

Giles put his glasses back on and stood up from his seat. "Well, since you're here and appear to be some kind of professionals, maybe you could assist us. We have discovered a large amount of vampires that appear to be living in the underground sewer system. Would you be willing to help us?"

"You want us to help you take them out?" Sam asked. "Why? I mean, I thought you were the chosen one." He continued, addressing Buffy this time.

Buffy shrugged. "Well, if we've got this right there are around 30 of them. Which is, like, a lot. I can't take 30 alone."

"Okay, we'll help." Sam assured, after another quick glance at Dean. Dean looked at Cas.

"I will do my best to assist, also. I'll be in touch." Cas stood up from his seat and looked back down to the people sat at the table. "Dean, do try not to die again." He vanished with a faint smile on his lips.

"Yeah, you listen to him Dean. Okay, Giles, Buffy. What's the plan?"

"Well, now we have some backup we probably should make a plan, right Giles?" Buffy smiled. Giles only nodded weakly in agreement.

"Dude, seriously. Why the hell is it always sewers?"

Dean was examining a map of the sewers over Sam's shoulder, and he appeared to be pissed. Sam bit back a retort, trying not to antagonise him further. Dean had been in a bad mood for the past few hours, and Sam was slightly worried. If Sam was being honest with himself, Dean had started getting angsty after Castiel had vanished in a flap of invisible wings midway through forming a plan. Dean would never admit it in a million years of course, nevertheless, Sam had a feeling there was something going on between him and Cas.

Dean reached for the whiskey again. Sam reached it before he did though, and slid it out of reach. "Dean, we're working."

Dean tried to grab the bottle, but Sam had it out of reach. "We're always working Sammy, it's not like we've had much time off recently. Just give me the damn bottle."

"No. You've drank most of it already and it's only 4."

The sudden burst of anger left Dean; he slumped into a chair and put his head in his hands. Despite looking exhausted however, a couple of seconds later he got to his feet and grabbed his jacked. Sam looked alarmed. "Where are you going?"

"Just walking Sammy, just walking. I swear, if I stay in here a second longer I'll kill something."

Dean stalked out of the door. A minute later, Buffy emerged from behind one of the large bookshelves up the stairs, her face a mixture of interest and concern.

"Is he always like this?"

Sam stifled a yawn with his hand. "Quite regularly, yeah. But not all the time."

Buffy made a face. "He sounds real fun to live with."

"He's my brother. He's sold his soul, given up his life and gone to hell for me, the least I can do is tolerate him when he's in a bad mood."

"Hah, when you put it like that I guess." Buffy frowned, seeming trepidatious. "Is there…something…between him and Castiel?"

Sam rubbed his forehead, trying to ease the headache that had suddenly appeared. "I was hoping I was the only one that saw that. I…don't know. I hope not, for his sake."

Buffy frowned. "Why? Surely it's better than him and someone who doesn't know anything about your life."

Sam shook his head. "He's an angel, Buffy. Do you really think that Castiel feels the same way about Dean?"


	4. Chapter 4

Dean slammed the door of the Impala, put his head on the steering wheel and worried.

Despite what he'd told Sam, Dean still wasn't fully convinced that giving himself up to Michael was the worst possible scenario. Sure, it wasn't like he wanted to be the archangel's puppet, but if it was that or the apocalypse? He sighed. Despite his feelings, despite whether or not it was the right thing to do, he couldn't give himself up. He'd promised Sam they'd keep fighting, and Cas would rather kill him than have him give up. He'd practically killed him last time. Dean didn't really want a repeat of the alley.

That provoked more worry. Cas was getting weaker, anyone could see that. His link to Heaven was breaking... or something like that. And it kinda helped to have an angel on your side.

Godsake, this whole thing was so messed up. Huh, God. Dean had given up on God. Joshua had told them that God had done everything he was going to do, and basically let his sons destroy the world without doing anything to stop them. Why should Dean have any more faith?

He considered going for a drive - that usually made him feel better. He lightly placed his hands on the steering wheel, but after a few seconds his grip loosened and his hands fell to his knees. Even the Impala couldn't help shake this mood.

He wondered was Cas was doing.

Sam felt like screaming. Or shooting something.

It was always useful to have more people on the case, and since neither Giles or Buffy had previously known who the Winchesters were, (including the part where they started the apocalypse), it was unlikely Dean nor Sam would be instantly betrayed. But it did raise issues, primary of which at that point was that Giles was insistent on finding some kind of lore, or something in one of his books about angels or vessels. Unfortunately however, it didn't seem that Giles's collection was quite as good as Bobby's in that particular area.

Plus, it didn't help that Sam was the only one actually looking through the books. Giles, Sam was sure, would have fully enjoyed the challenge of researching something he'd only discovered the existence of in the last couple of hours. Nevertheless, Buffy had convinced him to take part in a sparring session. Which while it was pretty distracting, it was damn entertaining to watch.

Punch punchpunch spinning kick punch, stake an imaginary vamp, then another, kick another's knees out, punch punch kick kick and cue Giles being slammed into the far wall of the library. Sam was worried that the ceiling would cave in, but it was still the funniest thing he'd seen in a long time, and to his astonishment he found himself genuinely laughing. You wouldn't think it to look at her, but Buffy had a serious amount of skill.

Giles picked himself up off the floor, groaning and muttering something about damn slayers and why do they have to be so damn strong. Sam hoped in a perverse way that they'd carry on, but instead Giles shot Buffy a frustrated look, threw a crossbow at her and told her that "if you enjoy your slayer duties so much why don't you go outside and do some target practice instead of killing people on your own side and since you can't be bothered to do any research you might as well practice killing something useful instead of my own brain cells." Buffy practically skipped out of the room.

Giles slumped into a chair rubbing the back of his head, and eyed the stack of books with significantly less enthusiasm with which he had just ten minutes ago. Sam had to stifle another laugh.

Two hours later, the library got crowded.

Buffy had apparently decided that Sam and Dean were not enough backup for her tastes, and had called for her own. Sam didn't exactly have a problem with her calling her friends, but he was slightly concerned when they turned up.

Their extra backup consisted of Xander; a worker in a local bar who appeared either irrepressively cheerful or insufferably depressed about everything in life. Anya; she appeared to be Xander's girlfriend, and was apparently formerly a thousands-of-years-old vengeance demon. Huh. Willow; Buffy's roommate at college, and a witch, or a witch-in-training or something. Dean wasn't gonna be happy about her. And, possibly the most worrying of them all, Spike; who was an English vampire with ridiculously bleached hair and who appeared to despise them all. He was also forced to hide under a heavy black cloak, because it seems that sunlight can kill these vamps.

If Sam was being honest with himself, he didn't really mind them. They clearly had some degree of intelligence to have lived in this place for a while and not died, and it made a change being around people who weren't down on everything. They'd saved the world from the apocalypse before, and while Sam wasn't sure they'd manage it this time he appreciated the gesture.

"Hey there guys!" Xander had shouted, ambling into the room. Sam had been quite entertained as Xander spotted him and yelped, clearly concerned about the fact that they had entered carrying weapons and bottles of holy water in front of a complete stranger. Sam had only laughed, and introduced himself. Xander had smiled and shaken his hand, as had Willow. Anya gave a sort of 'huff' and eyed him warily. Sam didn't like the idea that she already knew who he was, considering the Winchester's numerous dealings with demons in the past. Spike had told them all to 'bugger off', and then proceeded to ignore everyone and squat under his cloak in the corner of the room. The others had then joined Sam, Buffy and Giles in the research section.

In short, Sam quite liked them.

Dean however, wasn't too keen.

A couple of hours after Buffy's friends turned up, everyone was pretty much exhausted with the research. Sam hadn't had much sleep the night before and was exhausted, slumped in a chair rubbing his eyes while Xander got into an amusing anecdote about some of the more memorable patrons in his pub. Then the library door opened with a bang, and Dean stormed in, covered in blood and dust and looking murderous. Even Spike looked up, mildly interested. Oh, crap.

Sam jumped up, but Dean waved at him not to worry as he strode up to the whiskey that Sam had pulled out of his reach a few hours ago. Sam didn't argue this time.

"Dude…what the hell? I thought you were just going for a walk?!" Dean shot him a look that clearly said 'Sammy if you start nagging at me I will murder you', but Sam persisted. "What was it? Vampires? Dammit Dean we were trying to stay quiet!"

"Well Sammy, I'm real sorry that the vamps jumped me. And I'm real, real sorry that I actually managed to kill the fuckers and not be captured and not taken to their underground lair - or wherever the hell they live – to be drained of all my blood. And speaking of blood, I'm gonna need stitches. So can you please wait until I'm not bleeding all over the carpet before you start interrogating me?" Dean suddenly seemed to realise that there were a lot more people in the library than there were when he left it. "What the hell are you lookin' at," he snarled at Xander, who wasn't sure exactly what was going on and was sat with a frozen look of almost-fear on his face.

"Shut it Dean! These are Buffy's friends." Sam turned and made a sort of apologetic gesture to everyone sat round the table. "Sorry about him guys, he gets testy when he's covered in blood."

"The bastards also dislocated my shoulder…could you?"

With no preamble, Sam pushed dean's shoulder back into his socket. Dean moaned in pain and staggered over to a chair. "So," he grunted as Sam poured some kind of alcohol over the huge gash in his right shoulder, "we found anything interesting?"

There were a few seconds delay before Buffy answered, as all of them were sat somewhere between horrified at the amount of Dean's blood and the quite impressive way he was dealing with the stitches that Sam was now giving him. Sam had thought it best to do the stiches as soon as possible, otherwise Dean would bleed all over the seats of the Impala and get even more pissed. "Well," Buffy said, still looking slightly horrified, "we don't think there's anything special about these vamps. I mean, they just look pretty normal, except there's loads of them. Are you gonna be able to fight? You look pretty beat up."

Dean nodded and then instantly regretted it; any kind of movement made his head feel like it was being split open. "Yeah I'm fine."

"Shut up Dean. Buffy, I reckon we should leave it a few days. I hear that being attacked by vampires doesn't do much for your health."

Buffy nodded in wide-eyed agreement. "Yeah, why don't you guys get back to your motel? It looks like we're pretty much done here, and you should probably get some rest."

"I said I'm fine!" Dean growled, managing to stand up before his legs promptly gave way and he had to be caught by Sam.

Sam nodded. "Right, that's it, we're leaving. Giles, you've got my number. I'll give you a ring tomorrow."

The brothers made their exit.

"Sam?"

…

"Sam!"

"For God's sake Dean, I told you to get some sleep."

"I know, I know. But you don't get to boss me about, remember?"

"Whatever."

"Look, man…"

"Dean, can this wait? You look like death."

"Shut up Sam. Seriously though, I just wanted to say…I've kinda been in a bad mood for the past few days. I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I mean, we've all got enough to deal with without havin' to cope with my shit too, you know?"

"Um…okay. No worries dude."

"Thanks Sam."

Dean lay in bed with his insides writhing with guilt and worry. He worried about Sam, and hoped he wouldn't get hurt when they went hunting the vampire nest. He worried about Cas, and why he hadn't checked in and what he was doing. He worried about Buffy, and how it wasn't really right that she was just a young girl that had already spent years fighting vampires and demons. He worried that he wouldn't be any good when they hunted the nest, because he'd already managed to gotten himself attacked just walking around the damn town. He worried about what the vampires had said as they'd shoved a knife in his back. He worried that the angels would find Sam. He worried that the angels would find Cas. He was worried that Lucifer would find any of them. And he was worried that he'd unwittingly led his brother and his friend into a trap, and that the angels weren't as far behind as they'd thought.

Most of all though, Dean worried that the angels would find a way to get to him. He was worried that they'd hurt Sam or Cas or Bobby so much that he'd be forced to say yes to keep the others alive. And Dean really didn't want to break his promise to Sam that they'd go down fighting.


End file.
